Robert Crumb

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Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and singer whose name appears in his work: R. Crumb.

His artwork portrays a nostalgia for American folk culture from the late 19th and early twentieth centuries as well as a satire of contemporary American culture. Crumb is a prolific artist who contributed to many of the early underground comix movements in the 1960s, including being the first surviving underground comix magazine, Zap Comix, contributing to all 16 issues.

In addition, he was a contributor to the East Village Other and several other magazines, including a number of one-off and anthology comics.

During this period, he introduced a wide variety of characters that became extremely popular, including countercultural icons Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, as well as photos from his Keep on Truckin' strip.

In all these projects, sexual themes were prevalent, with some transforming into scatological and pornographic comics.

He contributed to the Arcade anthology in the mid-1970s, but after the underground's demise, he moved toward biographical and autobiographical subjects while refining his drawing style, a heavily crosshatched pen-and-ink style influenced by late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century cartooning.

He created Weirdo (1981–1993), one of the most influential journals of the alternative comics period, a lot of his work appeared in a magazine he founded.

His autobiographical comic work became more autobiographical as his career progressed. In 1991, Crumb was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in the comic book industry.

He is married to cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, with whom he has often collaborated.

Sophie Crumb's daughter Sophie Crumb has also followed a cartooning career.

Early life (1943–1966)

Robert Crumb was born in Philadelphia on August 30, 1943, in a Catholic family of English and Scottish descent, and spent his early years in West Philadelphia and Upper Darby. Charles V. Crumb, his father, authored the book Training People Effectively, and served as a combat illustrator for twenty years in the United States Marine Corps. Beatrice, his mother, was a housewife who allegedly misused diet pills and amphetamines. Charles and Beatrice's marriage was unhappy, and the children were regular observers of their parents' arguments. The couple had four other children, Charles Junior (1942-1992) and Maxon (b. ), but they did not have four other children: his sons Charles Junior (1942-92) and Maxon (b. Carol (1941–2020) and Sandra (1946–1998), both of whom suffered from mental illness and daughters. The family used to travel between Philadelphia and Charles, Minnesota, near Albert Lea, Minnesota. The Crumbs immigrated to Ames, Iowa, in August 1950. Charles, a Marine Corps sergeant, was an instructor in the Naval R.O.T.C. for two years. The Iowa State College program is a continuation of the Iowa State College program. When Crumb was twelve years old and his teachers discouraged him from cartooning, the family moved to Milford, Delaware.

Crumb and his brothers made their own comics based on Walt Kelly's drawings, Fleischer Brothers animation, and others. His cartooning began as his older brother Charles pushed him and gave feedback. The brothers self-published three Foo issues in 1958 in imitation of Harvey Kurtzman's satirical Humbug and Mad, which they sold door to door with no success, assuaging the young Crumb to try the comic-book trade. Crumb, a fifteen-year-old boy, has collected classical jazz and blues recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s. He lost his Catholic faith at the age of 16.

Personal life

Crumb has been married twice. He first married Dana Morgan in 1964, and they gave birth to their son Jesse in 1968. Crumb first met cartoonist Aline Kominsky in 1972 and the two families soon became close, and they began to live together (on the same property shared by Dana Crumb). Crumb divorced Dana and married Aline, with whom Crumb has often collaborated. Sophie, Aline's second child, was born in September 1981. In 1991, Robert, Aline, and Sophie moved to a tiny village near Sauve in southern France. Dana died in 2014.

Jesse Crumb, a child in Robert and Aline's Dirty Laundry Comics #1 (Cartoonists Co-Op Press, 1974), appeared as an adult in Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary film, Crumb. Jesse was critically wounded in a car crash near Phillipsville, California, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2017, and died three days later; he was 49 years old.

Crumb was a member of the Church of the SubGenius.

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Career

When he came home after high school, Crumb's father earned him $40. In 1962, Johnson's first work was designing novelty greeting cards for American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio. He was with the company for four years, making hundreds of cards for the company's Hi-Brow line; his superiors compelled him to draw in a more modern style that was not to leave a trace of his work throughout his career. Buzzy Linhart, Liz Johnston, and Harvey Pekar were among the young bohemians in Cleveland, including Buzzy Linhart, Margaret Johnston, and Harvey Pekar. He tried to sell cartoons to comic book shops, but showed no interest in his work, who was dissatisfied with greeting card work. In 1965, cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman published some of Crumb's articles in the humor magazine he edited, Help! Crumb had a dream to work with Kurtzman, but we need assistance. Shortly after, the newspaper was out of print. Crumb's bubblegum cards for Topps were sketched for a brief period of time before returning to Cleveland and American Greetings.

In 1964, Crumb married Dana Morgan. The couple, who were almost homeless, travelled to Europe, where Crumb continued to produce Kurtzman and American Greetings, and Dana stole food. Crumb often went his own way, and he was not close to his son Jesse (1968-2017).

In 1965 and 1966, Crumb's newspaper Cavalier carried a number of Fritz the Cat strips. Fritz appeared in Crumb's early 1950s; he was supposed to be a hipster, scam artist, and bohemian until Crumb's resignation in 1969.

When Crumb first started taking LSD, a psychedelic drug that was then still legal, he was getting more frustrated with his work and marriage. He had both good and bad trips. One bad trip put him in a muddled state for half a year, during which he spent a time in Dana; the state came to a halt in April 1966, when the two brothers shared a large dose of the drug together. During his years of LSD use, Crumb created several of his best-known characters, including Mr. Natural, Angelfood McSpade, and the Snoid.

Crumb was intrigued in the work of San Francisco-based psychedelic poster artists in January 1967, and he wondered if he could join them on a whim. He contributed to underground publications as a result of upbeat LSD-inspired counterculture. The project was huge, and Crumb was flooded with requests, including to illustrate a full issue of Philadelphia's Yarrowstalks.

Don Donahue, a free publisher, invited Crumb to make a comic book; Crumb drew two issues of Zap Comix; and Donahue, a Donahue company, published the first issue in February 1968 under the publisher name Apex Novelties. Crumb had trouble finding a first store that would carry it, and his wife had to sell the first run herself out of a baby carriage.

Crumb encountered cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, an art school graduate who saw himself as a rebel against middle-class American values and whose comics were both violent and grotesque. Wilson's attitude led him to abandon the idea of the cartoonist-as-entertainer and place more emphasis on comics as free, uncensored self-expression; in particular, his work became sexually explicit in late 1960's pornographic Snatch.

Wilson and poster artists Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin contributed to Zap's second issue in June. H.Fish, an artist from Zap, has also contributed to Zap. Donahue introduced the still-unveiled issue as #0 and a new third issue in December, with Gilbert Shelton joining the roster of regulars. Zap was profitable financially and created a market for underground comix.

Crumb was a prolific cartoonist in the late 1960s and early 1970s; at his highest output, he produced 320 pages in two years. He created much of his best-known art before, including his Keep On Truckin' strip and strips starring characters such as Bohemian Fritz the Cat, spiritual guru Mr. Natural, and oversexed African-American stereotype Angelfood McSpade. He launched a number of solo titles during this period, including Despair, Uneeda (published by Print Mint in 1969 and 1970 respectively), Big Ass Comics, R. Crumb's Comics, and Motor City Comics (all published by Rip Off Press in 1969), Home Grown Funnies (Kitchen Sink Press, 1971), and Motor City Comics (Apex Novelties, 1969).

Crumb's work also appeared in Nasty Tales, a 1970s British underground comic book. In a historic 1972 obscenity trial at the Old Bailey in London, the publishers were acquitted; this was the first time a comic was involved. One of the defendants testified at the trial, Crumb is the most notable, certainly the most influential, artist to emerge from the underground, and this (Dirty Dog) is Rabelaisian satire of a high order. "He's using coarseness to mask a social hypocrisy view."

Crumb imagined a lowbrow magazine influenced by punk zines, Mad, and 1950s and 1950s men's magazines. From 1981 to present, Crumb edited the first eight issues of Weirdo's twenty-eight issue, which was released by Last Gasp; his contributions and tastes influenced the later issues, edited by Peter Bagge until #16, and Aline for the remainder of the run. Cartoonists old and new were included in the magazine, with Art Spiegelman's co-edited Raw calling it a "piece of shit" and Crumb's fumetti was so popular that it never appeared in Crumb collections;

In 1991, the Crumbs purchased a house in southeastern France, which is reportedly funded by the selling of six Crumb sketchbooks. Terry Zwigoff's film Crumb appeared in 1994, marking a return to Zwigoff's 1985 work. Several major critic awards were given to the film.

The seventeen-volume Complete Crumb Comics and ten volumes of sketches were published from 1987 to 2005 by Fantagraphics Books. Crumb ("R. Crumb") is a regular contributor to Mineshaft magazine, which has serialized "Excerpts From R. Crumb's Dream Diary" every year since 2009.

Crumb created The Book of Genesis, an unabridged illustrated novel adaptation of the biblical Book of Genesis, in 2009. The original drawings for The Book of Genesis were on view in the Seattle Museum of Art in 2016 as part of an exhibit entitled "Graphic Masters: Dürer, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Goya, Picasso, R. Crumb: Crumb" is a punk.

Crumb was asked to contribute to the Libération magazine in January 2015 as a salute to the Charlie Hebdo shooting. He sent a drawing titled "A Coward Cartoonist" depicting an illustration of Crumb's friend Mohamid Bakshi's backside, as well as quoting Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

In the award-winning comic book series American Splendor, a friend of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, Crumb illustrated over 30 stories of Pekar's in the first eight issues (1976-1983). Robert Fiore, co-editor of The Complete Crumb Comics, wrote about their collaborations: he wrote about them in a previous post:

Crumb and his partner, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, are collaborators on several comics and comics, including Dirty Laundry Comics, Self-Loathing Comics, and work published in The New Yorker.

Crumb's artwork was licensed by Top Drawer Rubber Stamp Company in 1978, a collaboration between cartoonist Art Spiegelman, publisher Françoise Mouly, and people living at Quarry Hill Creative Center in Rochester, Vermont. R. Crumb's illustrations were one of the most popular designs created by this avant-garde pictorial stamp firm.

Crumb illustrated a number of writer Charles Bukowski's stories in the 1980s and 1990s, including the collection "The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship" and the poem "Bring Me Your Love."

Crumb produced a series of illustrations for Edward Abbey's tenth anniversary of the Monkey Wrench Gang, which was published in 1985 by Dream Garden Press of Salt Lake City. Many of these illustrations appeared in a 1987 Monkey Wrench Gang calendar, and T-shirts are still available.

R. Crumb Comix, a theatrical performance based on his designs and directed by Johnny Simons, was produced in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1986. In 1990, it was revived at Duke University, where it costarred Avner Eisenberg. Crumb, a set designer who also worked as a set designer, supervised the play's creation, handing over some of his most popular characters all over the floors and walls.

Crumb's collaboration with David Zane Mairowitz, a drawing, part-comic biography, and bibliography Introducing Kafka (1993), a.k.a. Kafka for Beginners is one of his less sexually and satire-oriented, similarly highbrow productions. It is well-known and highly praised, and has been reprinted as R. Crumb's Kafka due to its fame.

Crumb has frequently written satirical columns about his musical interests in blues, country, bluegrass, cajun, French Bal-musette, French Bal-musette, jazz, big band, and swing music from the 1920s to 1930s, as well as his bandmate Zwigoff's 1995 Crumb film. He designed, compiled, and illustrated the book Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country, which was released in 2006 as part of a series of trading cards that were first released in the 1980s.

Crumb, the band's lead vocalist, wrote several songs and performed banjo and other instruments, as well as a dancer. Crumb has performed mandolin with Eden and John's East River String Band, 2010, "Be Kind To A Man When He's Down on which he appears, the new (2022) "Goodbye Cruel World," on which he sings vocals, performs ukulele, mandolin, and tiple. Dominique Cravic, a French-style band based on musette, folk, jazz, and blues, formed "Les Primitifs du Futur" in 2000, which appeared on its 2000 album World Musette. He also produced the cover art for this and other albums.

Crumb has released CDs anthologizing old original performances gleaned from 78-rpm phonograph records. That's What I Call Sweet Music was released in 1999 and Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions in 2009. In 2013, Chimpin the Blues, a joint venture with fellow record collector Jerry Zolten, that blends rare recordings with discussions of the music and the musicians, was released. The back art for these CDs was also included in Crumb's collection.

Crumb performed mandolin with the Eden and John's East River String Band on their album Take a Look at That Baby in 2013 and also appeared in the accompanying music video.

Several album covers have been illustrated by Crumb, most notably Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company, as well as the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: The Roots of the Grateful Dead.

Crumb drew at least 17 album covers for Yazoo Records/Blue Goose Records, including those of the Cheap Suit Serenaders, from 1974 to 1984. He also created the updated logo and record label designs of Blue Goose Records, which were used from 1974 to 2006.

Robert Crumb was involved in the creation of The Beau Hunks in 1992 and 1993 and provided the cover art for both their albums The Beau Hunks and Laurel & Hardy music 1 and 2. He also illustrated the albums' booklets.

Crumb drew the artwork for a 10-CD anthology of French traditional music compiled by Guillaume Veillet for Frémeaux & Associés in 2009. He created three artworks for Christopher King's Aimer Et Perdre: To Love and To Lose, 1917-1934, and in 2011, he appeared on an Eden and John's East River String Band album (Be Kind to a Man When He's Down) for which he also created the album cover artwork.

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